According to NPD Group, an international marketing research group, the turnover of France’s tennis market increased by 7 percent to €283 million in 2007 compared with 2006. Interestingly, shoes and clothing inspired by tennis but not designed for playing the game accounted for over a third of this figure, proving the attractive image of the game. Indeed, of the total sales, €98 million came from tennis-inspired shoes that are not used for the game itself; €96 million came from tennis clothing (either designed for the game or fashionable clothes inspired by the game, but not counting socks or caps); €62 million was generated from racquets and tennis balls (including those sold to clubs); and €27 million came from shoes designed and used for playing the game.
However, the number of people practicing the sport is believed to be decreasing. The fact that the French player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga reached the final of the Australian Open did not encourage interest in the sport in France, in contrast to Yannick Noah’s performance at Roland Garros in 1983. In the long term, NPD is anticipating that interest in playing tennis in France will continue to decrease unless a French player wins a Grand Slam.
Renaud Vaschalde, the French sports market expert at NPD in Europe, says its market studies show that fashionable and sporty tennis-inspired clothing has been performing well. He added that there had been a huge growth in retail sales of polo tops, which was not just due to the Rugby World Cup in 2007. NPD estimates that, excluding rugby polo shirts, 66 percent of turnover in polo tops was inspired by tennis and most likely by Lacoste in particular, which is historically associated with the sport. Similarly, around one-third of sporty-looking skirts and dresses are believed to be inspired by tennis.
The group found that sportswear brands such as Oxbow, Roxy, Kanabeach, Puma and Quiksilver had sold well, as had the offerings of retailers such as La Redoute, Kiabi Jules, C&A, H&M and Celio even though these retail brands do not have a background in tennis. The tennis-inspired styles for casual wear that sold the best last year were Stan Smith II by Adidas, NPC Neo Logo by Reebok, Court Tradition Velcro by Nike, NPC UK II by Reebok and Carnaby Retro by Lacoste.
NPD also noted that the evolution of tennis clothing was more focused on style elements such as choices of color and cuts, than on technological innovation, and that this was especially true when comparing tennis with other sports such as running, skiing, hiking or swimming, where technical aspects are more important.
Fashion-wise, though, tennis still holds a classy, stylish image in comparison to, say, football, which has more of a working-class and sometimes even a “bad boy” image. However, the market remains largely restricted to the Parisian region (partly due to Roland Garros and Paris Bercy) and the Côte d’Azur (partly due to the Monaco tournament, warmer weather and celebrities).
NPD points out that other sports could also benefit from the effect of non-sporty clothing companies’ deciding to make sport-inspired collections, but believes that tennis has a privileged timeless quality that other sports don’t have.
In a separate study, NPD has found that young French people under the age of 18 represent a major market for sporty shoes designed for leisure wear rather than for sports themselves. Indeed, the turnover figures for this age group are believed to contradict the general downturn in the sports market, which saw sales of sports shoes go down by 1 percent during the first quarter of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007.
The sports/leisure category represents around half of the sales of sports shoes, and is the stronger segment. According to NPD, young people under 18 account for 32 percent of French sales for sports/leisure shoes. While the overall turnover for the sports shoe market increased only by 2 percent between 2006 and 2007, sales made to the under-18 group rose by 24 percent.
On the practical side, football shoes remain at the top for the under-18 group, followed by hiking, basketball and tennis. Yet while sales of football shoes have risen by 11 percent over five years, sales of hiking, basketball and tennis shoes have only inched up by 1 percent in the under-18 age group.
